already posting festive things

I have been making some envelopes from festive paper (not wrapping). I have sent a couple of cards with letters out in them. I hope the two I am showing here arrived safely at their destinations.

Is it too early to say Merry Christmas?!

On Tuesday of this week, Royal Mail released their Christmas Stamp issue. 

I only bought the overseas values, 87p, £1.28 and £1.90. I should still be able to buy first and second class festive stamps at my local post office. I have already received (in October) my first Christmas card from a penpal, but I only brought down the Christmas cards from storage this week. I will post today a letter to the US with a Christmas card! The first one for me to send this year.

That envelope, I sealed with one of these festive seals I found in a card shop, sold at a very reasonable price and I bought loads! Each pack has 24 stickers! They won't all get used this year! The snowflake ones I suppose I could use during the rest of winter...

Fireworks tonight!

Last night, went to a fireworks display at the local football club, nice display.

Received a nice letter today from a penpal in Germany.

October stats:
Posted 15 letters
Received 13 letters (up until 27th October)

November

I have been on holiday and came back home to 3 nice letters. I also wrote some letters while I was away on holiday. I will work out how many letters I have sent/received for last month, shortly.

Star!

Last week, Royal Mail issued some stamps celebrating Space Science. I bought some, as I do.

The stamps feature the Sun, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Lutetia (an asteroid) and Titan (Saturn's largest moon)

A friend sent a postcard to be postmarked with a special cancellation mark from Royal Mail

on the first day of issue with the Star (a village on the Isle of Anglesey) postmark. This was then sent to me in an envelope...

although the postmark on the envelope did not have as much care taken on stamping it.

Other special postmarks are available. Up and coming postmarks can be seen in Royal Mail's Postmark Bulletin, and a non-Royal Mail website where there is news and information about British stamps is http://www.norvic-philatelics.co.uk/ - well worth checking out, and Norvic's blog (link on that website, and in my blog list).

Handwriting

 As you can see, I do use fountain pens.... This one is a Parker Calligraphy pen (medium nib)

I write to my penfriends using fountain pens and last finished a letter today using one (it is now on route to France).

Yes, although it could be neater. If I use a Biro  it often isn't as neat. A fountain pen nib can seem rather delicate so I tend to write more carefully.

I look forward to receiving letters from penfriends and am able to recognise the sender, most of the time.

The reason for these questions is because of Philip Hensher. His book, The Missing Ink was published today and an extract appeared last weekend, in a newspaper and online by The Observer. Also, he appeared on Start of the Week with Andrew Marr on BBC Radio 4 earlier this week. The programme should be available to listen to online for at least a year at Start The Week, 8th October 2012.

The programme mentioned postcards.... They hadn't heard of Postcrossing!

The answer to last month's post about most important technology ever invented.... 25th was Writing, but... first was....

The Bra ??? Tools. Electricity. Wheel. Controlled Fire. Computer Games ??? AC Electricity...

It is October

 Yesterday, I posted 3 letters. Strangely, I managed to use all the same stamps!

I don't have many Winnie the Pooh stamps left.

These are the letters I received in the month of September (actually, one letter sneaked in and one stayed away). I haven't included Postcrossing postcards in this. I received more than one letter from a couple of penpals in that month. The camel postcard came with a letter from the United Arab Emirates.

September stats.
Received- 18 letters; sent - 16 letters.

&?! I've been shopping! &?!

Today, I went shopping, well, just trundling around the shops to see if there was anything good....

 In one shop, I came across some writing sets, more writing sets than notecard sets! So, I bought 5 different sets! Do you like the pink embossed one?

 Should I write along the lines or across them? Maybe post for overseas with the long envelope.

 See through envelopes! &?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!&?!

 This one looks a bit more "sensible" &?!

And instead of staples or brads, tie the sheets together. I have received letters with the sheets stapled/secured with brads before.

Post & seal

Two letters did arrive last Friday and I have already written replies. 

 Still haven't perfected it. Posted on Monday.

Is this an improvement? Posted on Tuesday with...

An Olympic stamp.

Yesterday, I received a label, opting out of the delivering oversized post addressed to me, given to my neighbours. It is not because of not trusting them, I do not know which neighbours Royal Mail would deliver to.. Also, the delivery office is not too far away, and I would be happier to pick the post up from there. 

No Letters to reply to :(

I posted the last of the letters I wrote last Friday. Since then, I have had very little post and no penpal letters. I am itching to write, so I am currently looking through random profiles on SendSomething for potential victims to thrust letters on.
Please postie, bring me letters tomorrow!

Letter storage

I am currently out of letters to reply to, and none came today (no post whatsoever for me, although I did feed a postbox with 10 postcards for Postcrossing). Anyway, I thought I would blog about letter storage. 

Currently, I store letters in little A5 zip folders, one for each penpal, but the folders for some penpals are getting rather fat! Perhaps I'll just use a second folder for those penpals.... I keep the letters, where possible, in their original envelopes, and number them with a little circle sticker. One penpal, I have replied to her 50th letter!

Is there a better way to store letters? Plastic doesn't seem all that romantic, and I would prefer a nicer way to store the letters. Perhaps I will scan them in at some point, to have a digital copy available...

Is writing the most important invention?

I went to a museum last month about science, industry and technology. They asked a question -

What do you think is the most important technology ever invented? The were choices up on the wall next to the question.

I chose Writing. It is not a popular choice.... What do you think were the top 5 technologies (although that word itself is a bit misleading) from 228705 votes in total. 6th was Computer Games, and 7th was AC Electricity. Feel free to add a comment with your guess. I'll post the photo of the answers in a couple of weeks or so.

Decorating letters

 I am not a very good artist (meaning that I do not draw very well), so if I want to decorate letters, I resort to stickers...

That is if I remember to use them, or take them with me when I go to a cafe or somewhere suitable to sit down and write.

Some stickers are holographic, or lenticular, and others are just plain nice.

However, I am a bit miffed as to what there is on this little sheet other than a teapot and teacups...

Been busy writing letters

I have been busy replying to letters. I have already finished one sheet of Gold Medal stamps (Dani King, Joanna Rowsell, Laura Trott in the Cycling - Women's Team Pursuit, in a world record time).

Last week I sent off a letter to France with extra bits, with 3 Gold Medal stamps (so that's where one of the stamps from the above sheet went, along with Andy Murray and Bradley Wiggins).

On Sunday, we stopped off at a supermarket. I noticed this slightly inaccessible postbox.

At least it was a Sunday when there was no postal collection, and today's a bank holiday (no postal delivery today).

Gold Peach

Last week I sent a letter....

I used one of the Gold Medal Winner stamps.. doesn't it look just great next to Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach (illustrated by Quentin Blake)?

Pile of letters

You may recall me saying that I didn't have many letters to reply to or hadn't received many letters recently....

Well, it didn't take long for my pile to build up to 10! 3 of these letters arrived on the 2nd of August.... another 3 arrived on the 10th of August. I am in the middle of a reply though to one of the early August arrivals.

29 Gold!

Towards the end of last week, I was able to buy a couple more sheets of Olympic Team GB Gold Medal Winner stamps. I will be getting all the sets at some stage, when I do not know.

I intend to use these, at some stage. Perhaps I could use Bradley Wiggins on post to France!

Gold!

Well, if you've been paying attention, the Olympics are happening now in London, United Kingdom. For every gold medal the UK team wins, Royal Mail will produce a miniature sheet with 6 first class stamps of the winner. Some post offices will be selling these the next day. However, others will receive them later, but there are some post offices that won't sell them. My nearest main post office received some today. I only bought a couple of sheets.

I am not sure if I will be buying any more from that post office. I do not know when they'll receive them next. Someone at the next counter was also buying a sheet so there is demand.

Also, Royal Mail will paint a post box in the gold medal winner's home town, gold! However, I doubt I will see them where I live.

Where do you write letters?

Sometimes, I start a letter in a cafe but if I do not finish it in one session, I will complete it at home. I also write letters at my desk (where my computer is), often listening to the radio, or watching a DVD I have already seen, on the computer.

However, this evening was a pleasant sunny one and we spent it down the beach. I laid on the rug and wrote a reply to a letter, using my bag, and a book to stop the letter and paper blowing away....

while this moat was being dug out (with a proper spade), with the sand placed on two piles. I finished my letter and then we played beach cricket (why can't this be an Olympic sport!?)... About 10 minutes later, the tide was coming close so our goodies were moved to higher ground...

and then continued playing for another 10 or so minutes, and then the tide washed over my little island. All that was left was the two mounds of sand...

then those began to sink in the rising tide....

Letters from the US

This week, I received a letter from one of my penpals in the US. I looked back at her envelopes to see the wide range of lovely stamps she has used.

Pixar stamps look great! The only films I have seen in the cinema in recent years have been Pixar movies! Stamps come in a wide variety of themes, and should appeal to most people. 

Another quiet mail week

I didn't receive much post this week, though I did get a few letters, 4 from the USA, 1 from the Netherlands and one from across the border in England!
I did post some Postcrossing postcards though, but due to a small threat of rain, decided to post them in an indoor postbox (we don't want our post to get wet!).

Most items of mail I post are posted in my hometown though they probably are not postmarked from here.

Map envelope, and reply

One of the letters I received last week was contained in a self-made envelope out of a map.

I haven't visited that part of Germany, though the letter comes from The Netherlands!

I was searching for something to send with the reply....

and came across some used stamps I had bought from an RNLI (lifeboats) charity shop. There was an Emmerdale stamp.

Here are some jolly or pretty stamps I like.

And these were some of the stamps issued for the Millennium (issued 1999/2000)

And these are some postal themed ones I found. Top Left- "Sir Rowland Hill was awarded the first RSA Albert Medal in 1864 for his postal reforms and the introduction of the Penny Post", next is a picture of him, then the stamp celebrating Royal Mail's 350 years of service (London), then Top Right is a stamp for the Postal Telegraph & Telephone International World Congress. Bottom Right is another picture with Sir Rowland Hill (1795-1879). Are there any more stamps out there with Sir Rowland Hill?

One out

No letters came for me today, but I did post a letter!

One of these pillar boxes ate the letter!

Llandudno Head Post Office

At the weekend, I went out shopping in a little Victorian coastal town of Llandudno on the North Wales coast.

I didn't have any letters ready to post (it had been a quiet mail week), but I thought I would take a picture of this postbox I saw. It has seen better days though.

It stands in front of the main post office in the town, quite an impressive building. It was opened in 1904, and had Grade II listed status.

This is the plaque commemorating the architect.